Season for Caring receives $100,000 matching grant. Make your donation now

The Sheth family has made a donation of an up to $100,000 matching grant to Statesman Season for Caring. This morning, the Austin family agreed to give $50,000 anonymously, but have decided to double it to $100,000 and allow us to use their last name. They wish for the other details of their lives to remain private.

From now through Dec. 27, when you make a donation to Season for Caring, either through the online link at statesman.com/seasonforcaring or by mailing in a check using the coupon that appears daily in the paper, your donation will be matched.

This is the second year this family has given a significant donation to Season for Caring, but the first time in the program’s 18 years that a matching grant has been offered. It is also potentially the largest single donation made to Season for Caring.

The Sheth family likes to give money in a way that is going to encourage others to give as well, their representative said.

Sheila King and her niece Katelyn Splude share a quiet moment on the family property outside of Dripping Springs.RALPH BARRERA/AMERICAN-STATESMAN

The Statesman Season for Caring program began in 1999 and has raised more than $10 million to help local nonprofit agencies provide basic needs to families throughout Central Texas. Each year the Statesman highlights the needs of 12 families and invites the community to help those families as well as hundreds of others that are served by the agencies that nominated the featured families.

The matching grant will be able to do a lot of good in the community, including providing for the featured families.

For Sheila King, 49, it can help her agency pay for water to be trucked to their property. The family lost three family members from July to September to cancer and suicide and needs major home repairs.

For the family of Rosalba Martínez-López, who died of cervical cancer on Dec. 2, it can help pay for their mother’s funeral as well as help the three teenage children and grandchild get settled in their older sister and aunt’s house.

For Maricela Garcia, the money can help her son Raymond, 9, receive more speech, occupational and physical therapy for Renpenning syndrome, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

For Jacob Rodriguez-Lopez, who lost his wife to cervical cancer in August, it can help him keep a roof over his head as he cares for his 4-year-old daughter Emely, who has Down syndrome and was recently diagnosed with leukemia.

For Terry Markland, 65, it can help him with expenses not covered by Medicare after he gets a very badly needed knee replacement surgery.

For Francisco Zuñiga-Echeverria, 28, who is deaf and grew up in foster care, this donation can help pay some of the expenses of college that are not covered in tuition.